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Engineering ingenuity Children put minds, LEGOs together at robotics camp

Can’t get enough robotics?
A FIRST LEGO League Tournament will be conducted Nov. 22 at Columbus Holiday Inn.
The tournament is associated with schools, where six to 10 students make up a team.
Two pairs of anxious eyes followed their LEGO robot roll across the table.
Not until they completed their final challenge did 10-year-old Christopher Jackson and 9-year-old Whitman Jerman relax and flash each other smiles.
The pair was among 30 children participating in the final challenges of ROBOColumbus Camp’s morning session Friday, while parents and grandparents cheered and snapped photos.
The summer camp was held Tuesday through Friday at the Columbus Learning Center.
The four-day event, open to kids in Grades 3 through 8, is intended to excite children about math, science, engineering, technology and teamwork using robotics.
Friday, children com- peted in challenges for prizes and earned points based on their performance.
“We got one challenge that wasn’t expected — the arrow,” Jackson said. “That’s pretty hard to do. I’m not sure how many people will get that.”
Jackson posed for a picture with his robot, which he named “Wall-E,” then tried to explain to his mother the workings of the robot.
“To me, it’s like a mystery,” Kathy Jackson said with a laugh. “He’s done it for two years and he understands it so well.”
The man behind the robots is Joe Fuehne, associate professor of mechanical engineering technology for Purdue University College of Technology-Columbus. He teaches campers how to build a LEGO robot, attach light and touch sensors, and program the robot to move.
He said he hopes children realize the connections between what they learn in camp and everyday life.
“There’s a statistic that by 2010, 90 percent of engineers will be in Asia,” Fuehne said. “So we’re trying to get more kids interested in engineering and technology.”
Marsha VanNahmen, K-12 program coordinator for Center for Teaching and Learning, said the children have worked, and played, hard this week.
This year’s camp, in its fourth year, is the largest yet, VanNahmen said. Sixty campers attended, split evenly between the morning and afternoon sessions.
First-time camper Maria Fischer, a fifth-grader at Southside Elementary School, said she’ll be back next year.
“I thought it was really fun,” the 10-year-old said. “I liked the building and having fun with the challenges.”
For one challenge, students headed to the center’s café to test their robots’ sensors. Fuehne explained to unknowing adult onlookers that each robot has four sensors — a sound, light, touch and ultrasonic sensor.
The robots moved along a course designed to display the effectiveness of these sensors.
To wrap up the week’s events, the students received certificates and awards.
Fuehne announced the first-place winners: Jackson and Jerman. The duo pumped the air with their fists and jumped up to claim their prizes — a LEGO set.
“It’s pretty neat,” Jerman said of their accomplishment.
Proud parents, including the Jacksons, looked on.
“It’s amazing that in four days this gentleman takes them from maybe having no knowledge with computers and programming to feeling confident with handling the devices,” Kathy Jackson said.